Monthly Archives: May 2013

Philosophical Relativity by Peter Unger

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Unger argues that some philosophical problems have no solution because certain key terms can be understood in two different ways. Since neither way of understanding these terms is better than the other, there is no correct solution to the problems in which these terms play a role.  

He offers the word “flat” as a typical, non-philosophical term that has two such senses. In one sense, something is flat if it is relatively flat compared to other things of a similar or different nature, depending on the context. Kansas is flat compared to Vermont, and the tops of coffee tables are flat compared to lots of other objects. Unger calls this the “contextualist” case.  

In another sense, however, Kansas clearly isn’t perfectly or absolutely flat, nor are coffee tables. The only thing that is flat in this sense is probably a plane as defined in geometry. Unger calls this the “invariantist” case, since the meaning of the specified term in this case doesn’t vary from context to context.  

Unger identifies four philosophical problems that he thinks are subject to this kind of ambiguity: the problems of knowledge (the word “know”), free will (words like “can” and “could”), causation (“cause”) and explanation (“explain”).  

For example, we commonly say that we know many things, but, when pressed, we confess that we could be wrong. Which standards must be met for knowledge to exist? Should our everyday standards be applied (“I saw a dog in the car going by”) or much more stringent standards that would rule out any possibility of error (“I  stopped the car and confirmed that a dog was present by sight, touch and hearing; discussed the matter with other observers; and then performed a series of medical tests to verify that the dog was a living organism with canine DNA”)?  

As Unger points out, we could still be wrong relative to the very highest standards, except possibly with knowledge of the “Cogito, ergo sum” variety (“I know that there is something”.) Understanding terms in the invariantist fashion can obviously lead to skepticism, but Unger argues that skepticism may be warranted — there is no right answer when it comes to choosing between contextualist and invariantist positions. He offers extended discussion of semantics vs. pragmatics and semantic intuitions, but his basic point is that some important terms are ambiguous and there are no compelling reasons to choose one meaning over another. 

There are at least three different kinds of relativity involved here. First, there is the idea that the meanings of some terms are relative to the context in which they are used (this is the position called “contextualism”). Second, there is semantic relativity: the idea that the meaning of certain terms is relative to certain assumptions, e.g. the standards that are appropriate for saying that someone knows something. Third, there is philosophical relativity: the idea that some semantically relative terms are philosophically significant, and that this semantic relativity results in certain philosophical problems having no solution. Unger argues in favor of all three kinds of relativity. 

It seems quite correct to say that some terms are contextually and semantically relative, and that some of these terms play a key role in philosophical disputes. I’m not sure that this explains why these disputes are hard to solve, however. For example, it seems clearly true that if we understand “know” in the ordinary sense, we know many things, and if we understand “know” in the ideal sense, we don’t know much at all. Unger doesn’t spend much time explaining why this ambiguity is so crucial. Few philosophers would deny that this kind of ambiguity exists, yet they would continue to argue about the nature of knowledge and justification, and whether or not there are grounds for choosing between the ambiguous meanings Unger describes.  (5/16/12)

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

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I tried to read this novel a few years ago but couldn’t get into it. Last month, I watched a film version and discovered that the story is much more interesting than it first appeared.

The first line of the novel is justly famous (“This is the saddest story I have ever heard”). I didn’t think it was as sad as that. It is the story of two couples who meet at a sanitarium around 1905. Their lives intertwine over the next ten years or so. There are love affairs and deaths. Mainly, there is the voice of the narrator, telling the story as if he were sitting in a cottage before a fire with the night wind howling outside (that’s how he describes his method). 

He is the husband in one of the couples, relating events that he didn’t understand at the time. He confesses that he doesn’t know much about the world. His story jumps around, eventually revealing who was in love with who, who was being misled, and who was terribly unhappy. 

The narrator is often confused and unreliable, but not always:  

“Is there then any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men’s lives like the lives of us good people — like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords — broken, tumultuous, agonised, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?” 

And later: 

“Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly-deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and to madness. But I guess that I myself, in my fainter way, come into the category of the passionate, of the headstrong, and the too-truthful… He (the “good soldier”) seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out on several excursions and did many dashing things whilst I just watched him robbing the orchards, from a distance.”   (5/10/12)

Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche by James Miller

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Examined Lives tells the life stories of some famous philosophers. There are six ancients (Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Aristotle, Seneca, Augustine) and six moderns (Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, Nietzsche), but no one who lived after 1900. 

Some of these philosophers had lives that were relatively interesting, since national leaders and religious authorities used to care about what philosophers had to say. Some of them were hired to give advice and some were persecuted for the advice they gave. But even these twelve philosophers are mostly interesting because of what they said, not because of the lives they led.

The author is mainly concerned with whether the philosophers lived up to their ideals and their advice. Did they live the way they said a person should live in order to have a good life? Not very often. His main conclusion is that being a philosopher and examining your life is no guarantee of having a life worth living. Or, to be a little unkind: having a life worth reading about.  (4/27/12)

Scientific Perspectivism by Ronald N. Giere

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Scientific perspectivism, as Professor Giere describes it, is a somewhat weak form of scientific realism: “For a perspectival realist, the strongest claims a scientist can legitimately make are of a qualified, conditional form: ‘According to this highly confirmed theory (or reliable instrument), the world seems to be roughly such and such’. There is no way legitimately to take the further objectivist step and declare unconditionally: ‘This theory (or instrument) provides us with a complete and literally correct picture of the world itself'” (pp. 5-6).

Even the most accurate instrument gives us just one perspective on the world, since it picks out some feature(s) of interest, it’s subject to some margin of error, and its output is subject to interpretation according to some theory. 

Giere begins by discussing color vision and other sense perception, then moves on to the use of various instruments for scientific purposes, and finally discusses the creation of scientific models and theories. He is especially concerned with how scientists actually do their work. His conclusion is that all truth claims are relative to a perspective, even the claim that all truth claims are relative to a perspective (p. 81). “The strongest possible conclusion is that some model provides a good but never perfect fit to aspects of the world” (p. 93). Giere’s own theory of scientific perspectivism “may be regarded as a set of models of various scientific activities … these models exhibit a good fit to actual scientific practices. That … is as much as anyone can do” (p. 95). 

Some models fit the world better than others, however, meaning that they better serve our purposes. Perspectivism might be considered a kind of relativism, but not the kind that says all perspectives are equally valid.

One of the most interesting parts of this book is the discussion of “distributed cognitive systems”. Giere argues that much of science involves the operation of such systems, most of which involve instruments and models that are perspectival. A simple example of a distributed cognitive system is a student’s use of pencil and paper to perform long division. The student making the calculation is part of a system that includes the pencil and paper. The system generates a calculation. This doesn’t mean that the pencil and paper are part of the student’s mind, as some philosophers who talk about “extended” or “embedded” cognition have argued. It’s not necessary to go that far in order to describe human cognition.

This is the first book I’ve read in a long time that I want to read again.  (4/24/12)

The Battle of Brazil by Jack Mathews

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The Battle of Brazil tells the story of Terry Gilliam’s great movie Brazil, in particular the fight between Gilliam and Universal Pictures over the version of the movie that would be released. Executives at Universal, who hadn’t been working at Universal when the movie was in the planning stages, thought that Brazil was too dark, too confusing and too long. So they tried to re-edit it. Gilliam and his producer strongly objected and started a campaign to get the movie released in its original version. The director and producer won the battle. (Although Universal got the last word by doing a poor job marketing the movie.) 

This is an interesting story about how Hollywood worked in the 80s. Not much seems to have changed since then. Hollywood executives are still trying to maximize profits and still don’t know which movies will be successful, even though they claim to. They also probably continue to offer incredibly self-serving explanations of their behavior.

Having recently watched Brazil again, I think some of it could easily have been trimmed. Some scenes went on too long and interrupted the story. It also bothered me that the same actress was used in the initial fantasy sequences and the “real world” story. The “real world” actress could have been put in the fantasy sequences after the main character met her. I wouldn’t have given the movie the happy ending that the studio wanted, however. The bleak surprise ending is terrific.

I suppose if I ever run a movie studio, I’ll want to interfere with what gets released too. (4/6/12)